•flank
Hotol fights for life
Time might be running out for Hotol, the reusable space launcher that British Aerospace hopes will slash
the cost of placing a satellite in orbit. A
senior company official warns that, if foreign
interests fail to take a stake in the project this
year, commercial prospects for the trans-
atmospheric vehicle would be damaged.
Dr Robert Parkinson, BAe's manager of
future launch systems, says: "We are losing
our opportunity steadily the more this drags
on. To keep Hotel's momentum and recover
Government interest we must demonstrate
we can put a collaborative agreement
together."
Unmanned, air-breathing in the atmo
sphere, and almost totally reusable, Hotol
could cut satellite launch costs to one-fifth of
those incurred using the US Space Shuttle,
says BAe. Its development cost, however,
which BAe estimates at $6 billion, is more
than BAe or the UK Government are
prepared to bear alone.
British Aerospace needs interna
tional partners if its reusable
space launcher is to get off the
drawing board. Alan Postle-
thwaite assesses its latest efforts.
The UK Government says that it would
consider providing funds if BAe finds foreign
partners, but in this BAe has been
unsuccessful. One reason, says BAe, is an
unhelpful attitude on the part of the UK
Government, which has not been as support
ive of a domestic venture as other European
governments might be. However, the
company also admits that the radical nature
of Hotol's design, which centres on a secret
propulsion system, has been responsible for
some of the scepticism in Europe. Dr
Parkinson says that talks with a "number" of
Hotol combines air-breathing and rocket propulsion
potential European partners are taking place.
BAe predicts that there will be a demand
for at least 50 Hotol launches annually early
in the next century, each placing seven to ten
tonnes of hardware in orbit and costing $5
million. The 275-tonne Hotol would operate
from airport-style runways, and use atmo
spheric air followed by on-board liquid
oxygen as the oxidant for its hydrogen-
burning propulsion system.
Dr Parkinson believes that, although
Hotol would not require subsidies to make it
a profitable venture, a Government financial
stake would be desirable to give it political
protection from any heavily-subsidised
competition that might emerge. He foresees
competition for launch business between a
European Hotol and advanced disposable
launchers from the USA and elsewhere.
A fusion of Hotol with the USA's trans-
atmospheric vehicle effort, the National
Aerospaceplane (NASP) being advanced by
the Department of Defense and NASA, is all
34 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 25 March 1989